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The purpose of this article is to conceptualise voice as vocalisation. Taking a multidisciplinary approach to the concept of voice, the study is informed by theoretical considerations pertaining to audionarratology, voice semiotics, and cognitive science. It is argued that the physical articulation of voice reinforces metaphorical implications. Through the illustrative example of the audiobook version of the bestselling thriller The girl on the train (2015) by Paula Hawkins, the metaphorical overtones of voice quality are discussed. In addition, the vocal impact on mental imagery, daydreaming, and phenomenal consciousness is analysed. Based on data collected from the Audible website for listener reviews, it is concluded that voice performance has an impact on the way in which both plot and discursive features are perceived. Importantly, the study shows that the gendered theme of motherhood, foregrounded in Hawkins’s novel, takes on new dimensions when the text is vocalised.

This article examines the use of figurative language in Gunnlagur Leifsson’s Merlínusspá, an early 13th-century Icelandic translation of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Prophetiae Merlini. Gunnlaugr has translated Geoffrey’s Latin prose into Icelandic poetry and added kennings, multipart circumlocutions for nouns, to Geoffrey’s animal allegory. Particularly notable is Gunnlaugr’s use of elaborate kennings in a meter and poetic form that do not demand them. This suggests that he understood kennings as having a potential role in the prophetic and figurative language he rendered into Icelandic. Building on previous scholarship, I proceed from the assumption that Gunnlaugr is conscious in his use of kennings to supplement the symbolic and figurative language of Geoffrey’s text, and that even if his main intention is to provide ornament, he does so in an original and thoughtful way that may provide a glimpse of academic undertanding of kennings as figurative language in late 12th and early 13th-century Iceland. Ultimately, Gunnlaugr’s kennings provide an interpretive multidimensionality and culture-bridging effect, serving to link the ancient Britain of Merlin’s prophecies to Gunnlaugr’s Iceland, and Icelandic literature to that of the wider world. This article is largely intended as an overview of Gunnlaugr’s use of figurative language, in particular for non-specialists in Old Norse who nevertheless might take some interest in this example of Arthuriana norræna.

Figurative language in Malory is not very varied, but is strongly connected to chivalry and the community standards that uphold it. This paper deals briefly with set figurative phrases but focuses on similes and some other figurative phrases, especially ‘out of measure’ and phrases involving hands, as examples of this. The figurative language used has a number of functions: the similes are not original or intended to be so but instead connect the depiction of chivalry to other chivalric texts; the phrases concerned with ‘measure’ remind the reader if the standards of the chivalric community, and the phrases involving hands retain a connection to the literal hands of the knight characters, bringing the violence perpetrated by a knight's hands into focus. The figurative language of Malory, while not as diverse and varied as we might expect were this a modern text, fulfils literary functions that are essential to this chivalric romance.

The primary aim of this study was to examine the development of figurative competence in one individual´s narrative writing from elementary school through high school and beyond. The examination included faded metaphors, rhetorical style figures, and the so-called sensual imagery (e.g., the depiction of a setting to create a certain atmosphere). A secondary aim was to investigate the figurative competence in light of language advancedness. To this end the elaborated noun phrase (length and complexity) was studied. Both quantitative and qualitative methods were used. The results show that the development of figurative competence is a gradual and protracted process which continues well after graduation from high school, encompassing several, partly overlapping phases. The results also suggest that a number of both internal and external factors (e.g., linguistic repertoire, cognitive and emotional maturity, reader awareness, participation in literacy events and literary reading history) contribute to the development. As was hypothesized, the figurative competence follows a similar trajectory towards increasing maturity as does the elaborated noun phrase.